Per USA Today, 33 percent of U.S. households have cats, and there are 16 million more pet cats than dogs. Which, we guess, is good, if the following is to be believed:

Being able to care for a pet improves our morale, helps validate us, and encourages us to take care of ourselves, says Rebecca Johnson, director of the University of Missouri’s Research Center for Human-Animal Interaction.

There is a Center for Human-Animal Interaction.

Also, appealingly, a cat will not take your shit. “A dog will let you bang it on the head and still love you. A cat won’t do that,” says Johnson. Children have to learn to be gentle to cats or the cat will go away.”

Also a cat will just vomit, spur of the moment, without warning. And you’ll have to clean it up. Which is good teaching for life. Think about it this way: You would so date a cat, but you wouldn’t give a dog the time of day. Metaphorically speaking.